In this demonstration, TNO and SURFsara will present two practical features of "Carrier Grade Ethernet": Quality of Service (QoS) using traffic policing, and easy-to-use tools to monitor Ethernet connections using Ethernet Operations Administration and Maintenance (OAM) frames.

We will show how to monitor a multi-domain, Ethernet-based lightpath, provisioned by SURFnet and terminating at TNO and SURFsara. From TNO domain monitoring will be performed using a commercial cloud-based service (Planet View by Cyan) while SURFsara will use their in-house developed plugins for Icinga and Cacti.

A generic QoS scenario will be presented which shows an ability of an operator to meet agreed service performance measures during congestion time by using traffic policing and congestion avoidance mechanisms present in Carrier Ethernet.

Background information: Ethernet as a technology has immensely evolved in the past years. The emergence of “Carrier Ethernet” has improved not only the scalability and reliability of Ethernet but also introduced functionalities such as Operations Administration and Maintenance (OAM) and Quality of Service (QoS). Ethernet OAM allows for connectivity monitoring and performance monitoring natively at Layer 2. In principle Ethernet OAM allows for monitoring at several different levels: an operator can use it to verify performance of a physical link while the customer can monitor parameters of a network service, regardless of the fact that traffic may traverse several operators domains. OAM mechanisms, especially those based on ITU-T recommendation Y.1731 are increasingly being positioned as means for service performance monitoring as well as for SLA verification and validation. This is an interesting development for the NREN community especially because today many of the lightpaths are lacking this feature.